


it's not the waking

by theexistentiallyqueer



Category: Persona 5, Persona 5 Royal
Genre: M/M, an alternate 2/2 take than the other one i posted, huge p5r spoilers!!!!!!, oh look another fic with a hozier lyric title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:41:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22687153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theexistentiallyqueer/pseuds/theexistentiallyqueer
Summary: There’s something hot and thick sitting in his throat almost choking him, something heavy and full of furious grief.You should know the moment when you first fall in love.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 16
Kudos: 181





	it's not the waking

**Author's Note:**

> Halt before you proceed: major spoilers for Persona 5 Royal endgame!
> 
> I wasn't going to post this here initially, since I already have _the second hand of fate_ and I hope to rewrite it and expand on it when Royal comes out and I get to actually play it for myself, but then I wound up rereading it tonight on accident and was like, what the hell.
> 
> Dedicated to blkmvsk on tumblr who made a comment to me on Twitter about Goro being the one to kiss Akira rather than the other way around (see lokiarsene's [translation](https://lokiarsene.tumblr.com/post/190385953720) of Our Light). Oh, speaking of which! I'm on Twitter now as well as Tumblr @existentlqueer.

Akechi’s voice carries on, imperious and insurmountable. “I shouldn’t have to lay out for you the extent to which his control extends like spoon-feeding a child. You know it already. His cognition is-–”

“I _know_ ,” Akira snaps, tugging hard on the hair at the nape of his neck, something sharp and angry bursting within him. His voice is a lash, uncharacteristically sharp; he glares at the wood-grain patterns sealed into the floorboards and counts down from ten with each measured breath.

Akechi has, blessedly and miraculously, fallen silent.

“I know how strong he is, and I know how far his cognition reaches,” Akira starts, and once he starts he finds he can’t quite stop, the words spilling out of him like grains of rice spilling through his fingers. “We’ve managed to dig our way so deeply into the collective human unconscious that we’re something close to holy, and our trust in him is our undoing, et cetera, et cetera, _I get that_ , but you can’t tell me that your life is a small thing.”

Akira pauses to take a breath and Akechi opens his mouth to argue; Akira cuts him off. “No. _No_. Let me finish. You’re always-–dammit.” Akira has to pause again to let his lungs claw for furious air, and Akechi remains silent this time. “You’re not wrong. I’m not an _idiot_. I can see how I’ve–how we’ve–how this situation dug itself out for us, I can, and I don’t agree with him, not even close, but it’s not–”

There’s something hot and thick sitting in his throat almost choking him, something heavy and full of furious grief. You should know the moment when you first fall in love. Maybe he could chart it, if he really tried. When was it? The jazz bar, maybe? The way Akechi talked about interchanging melodies and how Akira had felt like that’s how they were, that sharp back-and-forth where Akechi talked about trust like it meant something more? Or maybe that night in Mementos, the heady thrill of flashing spells and bursts of gunfire only just barely, and always carefully, off of their mark?

He still has Akechi’s glove in his pocket, within easy reach, if he needs the ghost of a hand to hold.

“It’s not a little thing.” Something crumples itself up–in Akira’s chest, in his voice. “Your life. It’s not a little thing. To me, it’s–”

The words crowd up in his throat and swallow themselves. It’s not a little thing. Akechi’s life is no little thing. It’s the size of a person, it’s the size of the world. It’s the gravitic center of Akira’s universe, the celestial light of his night sky. It’s larger than the world and smaller than a pinhead, and everything else in between.

Akira is a citizen of the world before anything else, and the first thing you learn as a citizen of the world is that you’re small and insignificant, in the grand scheme of things. Something about Akechi–-about the way they’ve always seemed to orbit around each other in the small span of time they’ve been acquainted-–has made Akira feel like he’s a larger part of the cosmos. Something about your life touching another’s and multiplying through the contact.

“It’s not a little thing,” he repeats. He has to pull his glasses off to wipe at the wetness gathering against his eyelashes. “How can you say that? It’s not a little thing. It’s–-”

–- _momentous_ , his brain wants to supply, but his brain-to-mouth filter is cut off by Akechi’s mouth pressing against his.

It’s inexpert, for sure. Akechi’s definitely never kissed anyone before. With his personality, it’s not a surprise, and that just makes it more charming. Akechi’s never kissed anyone because he’s an asshole, and Akira wishes he had it in him to be an asshole. Akechi’s mouth is warm and pliant against his, greedy and not giving enough and giving just shy of too much. Akira kisses him back, desperately.


End file.
